Kindred Spirits
by Morte Rouge
Summary: Movieverse. A set of two oneshots, in which Marilla discovers how difficult it can be to discipline Anne Shirley, considering that the young girl has Marilla's own girlhood nature and temper!
1. Carrots

Immediately after Mrs. Lynde's departure, Marilla betook herself upstairs, to the east gable.

"Anne Shirley!" Marilla bellowed—yes, bellowed. Any one who knew Marilla Cuthbert would have been astonished to see the usually cool, calm woman in this state; but such situations required a certain decibel level.

She'd known that Anne had a hot temper—just look at the way Anne had flown at Mrs. Lynde before!—but to think that the usually gentle, dreamy girl would result to physical violence was almost laughable. But apparently, Anne had indeed cracked a school slate on a boy's head!

And here, Marilla had been about to tell Anne she could remain at Green Gables! Evidently she needed to rethink this!

What on earth had her father been thinking to put a latch on the east gable door? Marilla wondered, rattling the door handle violently.

"Anne Shirley! I've heard all about it! Now you open your door at once!"

A plaintive wail sounded from within. "Please go away, Marilla! I'm in the depths of despair!"

No one who had smashed a slate over a boy's head had any right to _be_ despairing, was Marilla's opinion. "Oh fiddlesticks! Now, you open this door at once."

She had been wondering what she should do if Anne did _not_ open the door, and was both surprised and gratified when a _click_ sounded against the door. Relieved, Marilla walked into the room, just in time to see the quilt settle entirely over Anne's form—and suddenly, was not quite so relieved. "Are you sick?" she demanded worriedly.

"Go away…don't look at me!" said the lump in the quilt.

Marilla rolled her eyes—a look entirely lost on Anne, who, after all, was hidden entirely under the covers. "Oh, don't play innocent with me. I'm so ashamed I don't know where to begin! What do you mean by breaking your slate over some boy's head?!"

"He called me _CARROTS_!"

Marilla suddenly remembered the first insult she herself had ever received—"What a pity she is such a dark, homely little thing," her favorite aunt (until then) had said to another relative. As a young girl Marilla had been one of those unfortunates who seem to hover on the very edge of being pretty, and every year speak of being "pretty someday" with lesser conviction.

However, Marilla was unused to reminiscing about her girlhood—look at how pleasant it had been!—which is probably what caused her to say tartly, flinging back Anne's quilt, "I don't care what he called you—you had no reason to lose your temper—" and stopping dead.

Anne's hair was over her face; it, as well as her dress, was oddly black in some places and rusty green in others. Through the limp locks, Anne's eyes regarded Marilla beseechingly as she seemingly braced herself for Marilla's anger.

But it didn't come. Marilla was, for a few moments, speechless with shock. But, quickly recovering her famous tongue, she exclaimed "Anne…Shirley! What have you done to your hair?"

"Oh, Marilla," cried Anne, sitting up, "I thought nothing could be as bad as red hair—but GREEN is ten times worse. You little know how utterly wretched I am."

"I 'little know' how you got into this fix, but I demand that you tell me."

"I dyed it," said Anne in a small voice.

"You…dyed it!" repeated Marilla, blankly. "For mercy's sake, child!"

"He positively assured me it would turn my hair a beautiful raven black," continued Anne, still in the same sobbing tones.

"Who did?" ejaculated Marilla. "Who are you talking about?"

"The peddler we met on the road today…!"

Marilla sighed. "You know I absolutely forbade you to—"

Anne let out a great wail, and flopped over on her side, burying her face in the covers.

"Oh, what's the use?" Marilla sighed again, settling down beside Anne. "Well, I hope that this has opened your eyes to see where your vanity has taken you." One _could_ hope.

"What shall I do?" cried Anne, rolling over to look at Marilla. "I'll never be able to live this down. I can't face him again. But," she insisted, a firm note entering her voice, "Gilbert Blythe had no right to call me carrots!"

Gilbert Blythe? Before, it hadn't mattered to Marilla which Avonlea boy had gone home with a lump on his head—but Gilbert _Blythe_, now, was a completely different matter.

A matter which evoked another memory in Marilla's head, a memory of a curly-headed boy with hazel eyes and a flat gray cap, taunting a small girl on her first day of school: "Marilla—vanilla—Marilla—vanilla!"

"You give my books _back_, John Blythe!" cried the six-year-old, throwing her nice, shiny red apple for teacher on the ground and bursting into tears. Although John's teasing had weakened a very little at the sight of tears, he'd dropped the books in surprise when Marilla picked up the apple again and lobbed it at his stomach.

Now, Marilla smiled a little—fortunately, Anne could not see—and asked, in a much gentler voice: "You really smashed your slate over that boy's head?"

"Yes."

"Hard?" Marilla pressed, hopefully.

"Very hard, I'm afraid," replied Anne ruefully—although, of course, not _too_ ruefully.

"Well," said Marilla, "I know I should be angry—I should be furious."(_I should be furious _still_, is what I suppose I mean!_) "What a way to behave, you first day at school! But…if you promise me that nothing of the sort will ever happen again, I won't say another word about it"

At the words "ever" and "again," Anne rose slowly, as though in a dream. "You're not going to send me back?" she asked hesitantly—seemingly afraid she _was_ dreaming.

"I've come to a decision," said Marilla perfunctorily: "Your trial is over, and you will stay at Green Gables."

Instantly a change came over the young girl. Anne sat up fully and clasped her hands before her. "Oh—Marilla!"

But Marilla, unused to grateful affection—affection of most sorts, really—was already at the door. She turned and observed Anne, and finally remarked, thinking of John and Gilbert Blythe with a smile, "I think you may be a kindred spirit after all."


	2. Apples

Anne always says jokingly that when Marilla sits on the porch swing is the only time she ever looks less than serious—one elbow resting casually on the bench arm, her hand against her cheek, and a far-off expression in her eyes—and that her entire attitude may appear wistful at first but soon belies a nervous energy, as though Marilla were waiting for something. Or someone.

Today Marilla's unconscious expectance is rewarded. The sound of buggy wheels breaks into a very un-Marilla reverie, and she looks up to see John Blythe gazing upon her from his high perch. "Good day, Marilla."

"John Blythe," Marilla greets him blankly. She hasn't been this flustered since she was nineteen—or rather, since had had that last argument with John. "We haven't seen you around these parts much lately." Not for almost thirty years.

"Well, I haven't much time for social calls, nowadays," John prevaricates. His face, as well as his tone, is unreadable, but even from the porch Marilla can see the twinkle in his pale blue eyes.

There is a very pregnant pause.

"Old place still looks as pretty, though," remarks John at last, looking affectionately at the green roof and lace-point trim.

Marilla smiles a little at the abrupt transition. "The old buildings _are_ getting worn down," she admits, thinking of two years ago when she almost had to sell Green Gables. "But people in Avonlea still say that it's the loveliest old spot on the North shore."

"It is that," agrees John, looking steadily and thoughtfully, not at Green Gables, but at the woman on the porch.

Marilla is not sure they are still talking about Green Gables. She fidgets, and possibly even blushes a little, but not uncomfortably.

"Some things never change," says John softly, "even in thirty years."

Another awkward silence ensues.

John is suddenly brisk and courteous. "I'm looking for my boy."

"Yes," Marilla supplies vaguely, as she tries to recollect her dazed, usually-calm wits. "Anne and he are walking by the Pond…Maybe…Would you like to…sit awhile, until they come back?"

_Please._

John hesitates, but says only, gruffly, "Thanks, but we're taking the shipment into Charlottetown before dark. I'd best go and find him."

But as John tugs at the reins to bring the horse around, Anne bursts out of the bushes, her flower basket empty, her hair flying and her cheeks flushed with anger.

"Anne!" Gilbert Blythe is close behind, on horseback. "What about your twenty dollars? For the cow—?" his query ends abruptly as Anne rushes up the porch besides astonished Marilla, yanks the screen door open, flings the kitchen door behind it inward, and slams both.

Embarrassed, Marilla turns back to the men. Gilbert has ridden up beside his father, who shoots him an inquiring look, which is shrugged off. In their sweater vests (though John also has a sweater on), striped blouses, and gray caps, they bear a striking resemblance to one another…

Marilla feels ill enough, but the pain increases when John turns back to her. "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, does it?" he grins, nodding at the still-reverberating screen door. "…good day, Marilla," he repeats, and then they are gone.

Resignedly, Marilla rises and climbs the stairs to Anne's room. In the six or seven years since Anne came to Green Gables, Marilla has "got mellow", to quote Rachel Lynde, but she is still practical and sarcastic, most of the time.

In the split second before Marilla turns the door handle of the east gable, she can hear Anne weeping, and is reminded fleetingly of another incident: of standing with her body's weight against a bolted door, listening to a younger Anne bemoan "the depths of despair"—and, then, of a much earlier memory, that of a chestnut-haired nineteen-year-old, sobbing her heart out, in another room of the house, as she realized the man she loved would never return to Green Gables on her behalf.

It is because of this last recollection that Marilla wrenches the door open with more force than she intends, and sees Anne curled up on the bed, sobbing into a pillow.

Marilla instantly sits down next to _her girl_. "Oh, there, there," she comforts Anne, stroking her hair, though she doesn't yet know what she is trying to make Anne feel better about.

However, Marilla has rather a good idea of what must have happened. "You take things too much to heart, Anne Shirley..."

"Oh, Marilla!" sniffs Anne, "it's such a Jonah day! With Rollings Reliable…and Dolly…and _Gilbert_--!"

"Now, now…" The pieces are beginning to come together in Marilla's head. Once again, Gilbert Blythe is the root of Anne's troubles. "Jonah days come to everybody.

"God knows best," Marilla adds. She knows she is merely mouthing a platitude which gave Marilla herself no comfort on the only Jonah day of _her_ life, and tries a different tack. "You used to say: Tomorrow is always fresh—with no mistakes in it. Do you remember?"

Anne sits up a little; manages a small nod.

"Oh, what a girl you used to be for getting in trouble in them days!" Marilla continues with forced cheerfulness, pulling Anne up by the arm. "Mind the time you dyed your hair?" Forced, her tone might have been, but a real peal of laughter escapes Marilla as the image of a tearful girl, her red hair splotched and marred by streaks of green and black. And now Marilla really is smiling. "I used to think you were possessed! Oh, Lord…"

The idea elicits a wide, if teary, grin from Anne. "What a worry my red hair used to be! I'm afraid I've never been able to endure personal criticism very well," she moans soon. "Gilbert gave his honest opinion of my story this afternoon…and I…

"Urgh! My temper _always_ gets the better of me!" Anne complains. "I whipped him as hard as I could."

"I'm glad to hear it," says Marilla firmly. "The Blythes have always been far too opinionated for their own good!"

"Oh, no, Marilla." Anne shakes her head gently. "He was _right_. And I've made a terrible idiot of myself! You don't know _how_ spiteful I was!"

"I can imagine."

Anne, either not hearing or not comprehending, goes on, "Our friendship—now it won't ever be the same again! Why can't he just be sensible, instead of acting like a silly schoolboy?"

It is an interesting question, with an even more interesting (not to mention, _evident_—at least to Marilla) answer, and one Marilla herself did not know the answer to until it was too late. Marilla presses her eyes closed a breath before she says, slowly, "Because he loves you."

"He…loves me?" Anne repeats, scarcely above a whisper. "I can't imagine why."

Marilla smiles at her girl. "Because you made Josie Pye and Ruby Gillis—and all of those wishy-washy young ladies who waltzed by him—look like spineless nothings."

"But…Gil…" Anne sighs. "He's hardly my idea of a romantic suitor."

Marilla has been hearing constantly about Anne's "Romantic Ideal" for several years now. Having never learned to think in capital letters, Marilla sighs. "Young lady, you have tricked something out with that imagination of yours that you call romance—and now you aren't able to recognize the real thing. Have you forgotten how he gave up Avonlea School for you, these past few years, so you could stay here with me? How he picked you up every day in his buggy, so you could study your courses together?" Marilla chucks bemused Anne under the chin. "Don't toss it away, Anne, for some ridiculous ideal that doesn't exist."

Anne nods weakly, and Marilla nods briskly.

"Good. Now, before you finish packing for college, come downstairs and see if a cup of tea and some of those plum puffs that I made today don't hearten you."

"Plum puffs," begins Anne tragically, "won't minister to a mind diseased—or a world—that has crumbled—into pieces—!" and she breaks down in a fit of tears again.

Marilla, seeing that Anne is recovered enough to adopt a quotation, is unmoved this time, and can only say, "Well, I'm glad to see that your dented spirits haven't injured your tongue."

Little do either of them know how a few years at Redmond will change all that.


End file.
